Fentanyl, a drug that's 30 times stronger than heroin and claimed the lives of more than 20,000 Americans last year, has been implicated in the deaths of celebrities including Prince and Tom Petty.
A new report from the Associated Press confirms the drug played a big role in Prince's death. A toxicology report obtained by the AP reveals that Prince had "exceedingly high" levels of fentanyl in his system when he died in 2016.
Here's what the drug is, and how it makes its way to the US from China.
Fentanyl can take many forms. Available legally with a prescription, the drug is often prescribed in patches or injected through an IV. On the street, it typically shows up in pills and may be disguised as another opioid painkiller like oxycodone.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Since 1999, overdose deaths involving opioid painkillers have quadrupled. In 2016, close to 64,000 Americans died from opioids. Roughly 20,100 of those deaths were from fentanyl alone.
Fentanyl is increasingly showing up in counterfeit pills seized by authorities on the street. These pills, which were labeled hydrocodone, were recovered by authorities during a recent fentanyl investigation in Northern California.
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